Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Last night I got the most super hilarious text from Ashley Bruno nee Skogen, or Skogen nee Bruno - not sure how that works. See, she came over on Saturday for a backyard fire. I was bragging about how I had spent the entire day spring cleaning. We got to talking about how Alason and I made my grout in the kitchen go from BROWN to WHITE. 6 years of filthy spills that stained my grout. Clean! And I owed it all to Bar Keeper's Friend.I ought to give credit where credit is due. My sister Keri recommended it to me. She's a cleaning lady and knows her some good cleaning products. Anyways it's like $2.19. But I digress. This stuff cleaned my grout! Amazing! So I'm telling Ashley about spring cleaning, and she asked me what could get her nasty dirty gross apartment sink clean. I gave her a little sample of BKF and the next day I got a pretty funny text photo:

Thursday, March 19, 2009

A few things I notice are:Kasey's bowKeri's missing glasses (they didn't have BIG glasses in the olden days, she had to take them off I think)Kelly's "hat"My smile. They told me not to smile. "In the olden days, people didn't smile", I remember them saying. In retrospect, they maybe meant that people didn't smile in photos. I remember feeling so sorry for the people in the olden days because they were probably very poor and sad, what with the "no smiling" rule.But, I was SO excited to have our picture taken, I couldn't help it!

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

I stole this from a Facebook friend's youtube account. This is such a cute video! He collected a bunch of pictures where people had MWO's and set them to music. I'm in it! I make an appearance around 2:02, 2:08 and 2:17. (approximate) You'll also see my buddies Sarah and Janith.

There just aren't many pictures of me as a kid. I'm SO glad whoever took this picture had a camera at that exact moment, because I LOVE this picture. (This is a picture I took with my camera of the framed pic, so it's much clearer in the frame, but you get the idea.) My dad bred dogs and we always had puppies and Kasey and I played with them all the time until they weren't cute puppies anymore.

So we stopped at the Asian market because my mom has been wanting to make sushi so bad lately. We picked up bamboo mats and chopsticks and she had all the other ingredients.

We just used cucumber, avocado, shrimp, smoked salmon, celery, rice and Nori. The only 'raw' ingredients were the vegetables.

We spread the rice onto the Nori over a bamboo mat and then added the ingredients. None of us had done this before and we didn't bother to learn how (even though you can easily youtube the directions, I found out later.) I'm proud of us for jumping in with both feet.

Here's Tanya, setting out the wasabe paste, the pickled ginger and soy sauce:

Ben, Kasey, Keri, Miles, Murphy, Miyo and I all piled into the minivan and headed up to my parent's house in International Falls to visit my brother and his wife. We all planned on leaving Minneaoplis at around 5:30ish, but after running several errands (grabbing Dramamine so the kids wouldn't barf in the car, heading to Golden Noodle asian market to pick up sushi making supplies for mom, and hitting the Seward Co-op for snacks for the road) we finally got on the freeway about 7pm. So we didn't get to mom and dad's until midnight. We made excellent time, considering we picked up Hanna and Skete in Cook. If you're doing the math, yes, we had nine people in a minivan. REDNECKS. But it was only for about an hour.
When we got there we stayed up until 3am singing Karaoke. Here are some photos of that...(warning: also in the background you may see some dead animal pelts)

Even Skete got in on the fun: (turns out he just needed to KNOW the song we forced him to sing.)

And then we woke up around 9am on Saturday and just sort of hung out and did nothing all day. It was most excellent. We were missing Kelly and Mike and Karley and David and Marc but otherwise we were all there. That was nice. It's hard to get us all in the same room at once with 6 kids. Anyways...we made sushi!!!

Monday, March 16, 2009

My grandma wasn't your typical grandma. She didn't really bake cookies...moreso she played bingo and chain-smoked. She used to make us scrambled eggs while smoking and the ashes would fall into the eggs. Anyways, she was a very cool lady. She survived breast cancer, a mean husband, 7 children, and a world war (Navy Gal). In fact, she met my grandpa Dick in San Diego when they were in the service.

Anyway this story is not about that.

One time when grandma looked more like this:

...she and I were hanging out in the upstairs bathroom of our house. It's a very huge room, bigger than my bedroom and attached to it. So you could hang out in it. Anyways, she and asked me to get her a towel. I ran to the basement because that's where all the clean ones were. When I came back upstairs the bathroom door was closed and so I knocked on it.

Saturday, March 14, 2009

Warning: Explicit story. Do not read any further if you do not wish to be grossed out.

Well - I went deep sea fishing. At first, I didn't care if I went or not, since I have already been, but I figured what the heck, this will be fun. It was fun last time. I should have known it wasn't going well when I didn't have time to go number two before I left the hotel (never a good idea in Mexico). And then I was 45 minutes late to the boat due to bad directions. When I finally arrived, after walking for a half hour, getting to the wrong place, then being shuttled 1 mile and being charged $20, now finally I felt like I had to go number two. But there was no time, so I got on the boat figuring that I would just hold it for the four hour boat ride.I was OK for the first 15 minutes, but after that the sea was so rough I started to feel like I had to puke. So I stood outside to get fresh air, but all there was back there was diesel fumes. It was making the puking sensation even worse. I did NOT want to puke, because as you know, the same muscles that make you puke...well you get the picture. Let's just say I didn't want to have to throw my underwear over the side of the boat.Anyways, I think we drove for an hour to get way out to sea, and although I took a dramamine, I didn't make it that far. I ran to the back of the boat to puke, and it was very embarrassing because my puke landed on this little platform, and was not washed away for quite some time.But, luckily there were no accidents south of the border. Right away I felt better. But that only lasted about 5 minutes. Again I puked, this time into a bucket. About this time, I realized I was going to have to go to the bathroom, there wasn't going to be any more 'holding it'. I also felt that if I were able to go, my stomach might feel better. I didn't even know if the boat had a stupid bathroom. Thank goodness it did. First I had to get the door unlocked. To compose my stomach and focus on the task at hand proved quite difficult. Finally the guide came and got the door open for me. The room measured about 2 feet by 2 feet, and the toilet was about as big as a basketball. Meanwhile the entire bathroom is knocking me from wall to wall and side to side because of the roughness of the ocean. I got my belt undone, and my pants around my knees, being very careful not to get any of my pant legs onto the disgusting pee drenched floor. At which point I realized there was no toilet paper anywhere. I have to puke, and I can't to the bathroom, so I have to compose my stomach, pull up my pants, and go back out to the boat for the toilet paper. Now my stomach is upset and I have to puke, so I do that, this time over the side of the boat, being careful not to crap my pants, and after 15 minutes or so my stomach calms down a little bit I take another trip into the bathroom, this time armed with a packet of napkins (which I had to get from the fishing guide, who by now was a tad irritated with the production I was putting on). Back in the bathroom...repeat scenario about the pulling down of the pants, and now this time I am ready to do my business. The bathroom is alive and throwing me about, and there is no seat to sit on so I have to stand, aim and hope for the best. Those of you who know me know that I don't touch ANYTHING in a bathroom. Now suddenly I find myself grabbing walls, leaning my bare behind on the wall to brace myself, leaning my entire body on the disgusting, putrid wall. I am sweating profusely because of the warm weather and the puking and my stomach is shaking and I need those muscles to hover myself over the toilet which will not stay still. Over the years, I have gotten quite good at peeing standing up, but this was fresh territory. All that practice paid off, however, and all is well. I have finished, wiped and flushed, feeling very proud of myself when suddenly - I realize the flush didn't do the trick and there's still hard evidence in the toilet and then the stench hits my nose and now I am face first into this tiny toilet. I couldn't stop it. There was nothing left to puke up, but I am wretching and wretching, and crying and my face is wet with sweat, my hands filthy from the flusher. Pumping and pumping it, eighty times, turning the knob for water, poking around, touching everything, trying to flush and erase my embarrassment. Of course, it didn't quite flush everything down, sending only a slight trickle of water to wet the mess I have left in the bowl. I think I must have used all the water in the flusher. So now I am faced with a choice. I am the only one who has used the bathroom, and while gross and dirty, it is quite obvious that someone has now used it for not one, but two purposes. I can either leave, wipe the sweat off my face and retain my dignity knowing what the poor Mexican fishing guide is likely to find and know immediately that it was me, OR I can grab gobs of napkins and clean out the remaining puke, etc from the toilet and throw the whole thing into the aforementioned bucket. I'm sure you already know the choice I was forced to make.

Friday, March 13, 2009

I have such a hard time 'expectorating'. And it's all I have been doing for the last 5 days. In the past I was a 'swallower', and suffered for the last day of every cold by puking up all of the stuff I had been swallowing for a week. And so lately I have diligently been trying to spit it all out.

My sister Kasey and most men can just go "HAWK! TOO!" and it goes hurtling end over end 30 feet. Not me. I hawk and hawk and gurgle and cough and gag and then I have to hang my head over something and then spit and it never comes out right and sometimes I get it on me.

Last night I went to the GAP to spend a gift card and I had 4 pairs of clearance tights in my hand and a skirt on a hangar draped over my arm. I accidentally coughed and had a loogie on my tongue. So I didn't know what to do. I had no kleenex in my purse. I looked around and desperately wanted to swallow, but just couldn't. I decided I would go into the hallway and spit into the garbage. First I had to deposit the tights and skirt onto the purchase counter and say (with loogie on my tongue) "do you mine if i lee this heh?" and then run out into the hallway. Well the garbage can had a lid on it and I didn't want to stick my head in the tiny hole and try to spit, so I wrestled with the lid and it. wouldn't. come. OFF! Thank goodness for the Latina maintenance woman who was rolling her cart by at that time. I looked at her with desperate eyes, because when I have a loogie on my tongue it makes me gag and I WILL puke if I even so much as think about the loogie on my tongue.

I look at the lady, and I can't talk, and she looks at me like, 'what can I do'? and my eyes are red and watery and I say "I nee to spih", and she points at her paper towel roll and I nod and grab it and rip some and spit into it and then throw it in the garbage.

"THANK.YOU.SO.MUCH.!!", I say and walk back into the GAP and continue shopping.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Ross and I are planning a trip to Oslo and Stockholm. I really want to also go to Helsinki and Estonia and Copenhagen too...cuz I probably won't go to Scandinavia again. I'm looking for hostels online, and keep finding reviews like this one:

"Ok so this place wasn't a hostel, but wasn't a hotel. You can book a dorm for six people but you need to have six people. Makes sense doesn't it. Not really. The rooms were comfortable and the showers fairly new and plentyful. Other than that the hotel/hostel put out bad vibes from the start. This is a huge place with over four hundred rooms yet there wouldn't have been more than thirty people in the place. If you dont mind having hundreds of hookers hassling you and asking you for sex literally as soon as you leave the front door then this place is for you. If you also dont mind seeing old men bring hookers back to the place and having them roam the hallways then it is ok. Unfortunately, it wasn't ok for me and made my stay very uncomfortable. If you do stay here be very careful at night. I mean very careful. I nearly got beaten up by a pimp for turning down a hooker."

And this one:

"We stayed here for five nights in July 2006. The boat was a good place to stay -- tasty breakfast and clean accommodation and the staff were friendly and helpful. It was also a very central location. However to get to the boat, most afternoons and evenings we had to walk past several drug users cooking up and injecting drugs just outside the building directly opposite MS Innvik. They were not threatening in any way but it was not pleasant to see. In the morning we would walk by their used, bloodied needles left lying around -- I definitely wouldn't want to bring children here to stay. It's a shame as it ruined our stay a little."

I hope Ross plans on being not only my cousin/travelling partner, but also my bodyguard.

Monday, March 9, 2009

OMG.This morning, I came in and my radio was OFF, and my cube neighbor has her radio on 102.9 LITE FM.Instead of everyone thinking I'm smart, and then finding out I'm hilarious, they just think I'm annoying!!!

We're listening to Love 105 at work, and as each song comes up, I'msecretly googling the lyrics and singing every word to every song. I'mwaiting for someone to go, "How do you know all these words?"Cracking myself UP!

Sunday, March 8, 2009

And so then Alason dropped ol' Murphy off and Krista and Murphy and I watched the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 (yah, shut up, whatever) and When Was the Last Time You Saw Your Father? and both were pretty good. And then we just chatty chat chatted and I convinced Krista to stay over another night, and she did and then we woke up on Sunday morning and had another YUMMY breakfast, and Nancy stayed over too. we had this:

And I still didn't wash my hair:

And Murphy had this:Did I mention I love my friends and I love breakfast and I love coffee and this was the best weekend of mornings ever? And my friends are so cool that they even did the DISHES after!!!

So after the soap making party I was saying goodbye to my friend Krista and then I was like, "see you tomorrow at 12:30" because she was coming back to get a massage from Nancy the next afternoon, and then I was like, "Hey! Just sleep over, duh!" And so she did. And so I'm really really sick I slept in until 11am, and then she woke me up and she said that she couldn't wait anymore to eat and that she had already walked to the store and Caribou and would I like some breakfast? And I came downstairs to find my Caribou coffee all warm, (because she had put a towel all around it to keep it warm) and then she made me HUEVOS. RANCHEROS. She baked some potato wedges, cooked some black beans, had fresh yummy guacamole and eggs over easy with cilantro on top. YUM!!! YUM!!! I love sleepovers and I love my friends and this was the best morning ever.

Check it out!

Oh, and then Nancy came and did 5 massages!

p.s. if you're wondering what I look like after a massage...

and that is a cold sore under my nose if you're wondering. part of me being SO SICK. Nancy gave me some toilet paper and I shoved it up my nose during the massage to catch all the dripping, and then I had a couple coughing spells and she said no wonder my back is sore, all of the muscles tensed right up for the coughing.

I had some girls over on Friday night and we had a lot of fun making homemade laundry soap, eating and chatting. Teri made Tiramasu and chicken noodle soup and Beata brought mini-quishes and we also had lots of chocolate and cheese and crackers and wine. And we made Colorado Bulldogs and White Russians.

Recipe for Soap:

(Boil 4 cups water. Add 1 cup grated Fels Naptha bar soap. Whisk until melted. Add 1 cup sifted Borax and 1 cup sifted washing soda. Stir until liquified and add to an ice cream pail filled half-way with cold water. Add more water if needed, until ice cream pail is filled to within one inch of top of bucket.)

It was fun, and we made a ton of soap. Ashley brought goggles, in case things got messy.

And then today, I cleaned my tub with washing soda paste. Worked like a charm. I saw also in my book, "Green Clean" that you can cut a lemon in half, dip it in Borax and use that to wash your tile and tub, so I'll try that next time. I'm pretty sick so I didn't go crazy. BUT I also did a load of dishes in the dishwasher using one part Borax and one part washing soda. It's running right now, I'll let you know how that turns out.

Saturday, March 7, 2009

I went to Sam's Club Liquor and loaded up on alcohol for the week. *Wink* While I was checking out, I instinctively handed my ID to the cashier. He goes, "What, you think you look young?" And then I was all flustered and trying to think of something, and he says, "Honey, your days of being carded are over."

Friday, March 6, 2009

My parents raised me right, and so therefore I have always been very comfortable conversing with people of all ages. When I was maybe 7 or 8 I was chatting with this elderly gentleman and I was so impressed by his nice white straight teeth and so I told him so. I asked him, "did you have braces when you were a kid?" I went ON and ON about his awesome teeth.

Finally he said, "Do you want me to take them out so you can get a closer look?"

I am going through old emails and found this one, it's too hilarious.Here is a conversation Keri had with dad about a year ago:

Keri: Is mom home today?

Dad : No she is working.

Keri: Okay, I just called her to tell her something interesting. On wednesday, Marc and I went to Rochestor for his doctor appointment. We were very discouraged, because originally they had said Marc had a chance to live for possibly 10 to 15 years, but his chemo treatment isn' t decreasing his cancer for the last 3 months, so the numbers of 3 to 5 years were starting to come up again, and a stem cell transplant often only increases ones life for 18 months. So we were just sick and scared. But this morning my friend was watching the Today show and Geralidine Ferrara ( former congresswoman) has multiple myeloma, and she was told she had 3 to 5 years to live, but she has tried a new drug, and it is working well, and she feels good. She was diagnosed with the cancer 9 years ago. So I am encouraged by that and wanted to tell mom looking up the article online.

Dad : Well, she will be home by 4pm. Now there is red juice on the top of my steak do you suppose it is to rare and I haven't cooked it long enough?

So I'm driving along 62 West on the way to work (at 10:00) and every idiot and their brother is on the road, and they are driving to slow and in my way, and spraying my freshly washed car with icky and I'm late for work and I'm sick and so I'm in a bad mood. I exit and get onto 100 South and it's an Open Road! So I ease into the left lane and take her up to 80mph. Then I realize how fast I'm going, and drop it back to about 65mph or so. One of those things where I actually in my mind envisioned getting pulled over and explaining to the cop that I just lost my mind for a minute but that was because of the open road and all. And then of course I get pulled over, and of course I tell him that whole story, and he said he got me going 75. I go, "well, actually I was going 80!" Kind of like to explain that it was my conscience that made me slow down, not him. Because he was unmarked and stuff. Anyways, even though I repeated to myself "let me off. let me off. let me off." the entire time he was in his car, he ticketed me for going 75 in a 55. $212. I'll be honest. I speed every time I'm in my car. I deserve it. I'm still annoyed of course, but hopefully this and the ticket I got a few months back will make me slow down a little? Not sure, because as soon as I got back in my car and drove away I accidentally sped again. oops.

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

I haven't dusted since 2004 when Keri came over and helped me clean. GROSS! I'm not a disgusting person, and take pride in a clean house, but this mentality somehow doesn't spread to my bedroom. In my bed, I found 3 remote controls, a bag of corn, a neck cozie, two magazines, two books, three extra pillows, a WINE GLASS, two pairs of old pajamas and a sweater. On the nightstand were three empty bottles of wine, two coffee cups, two more wine glasses, a bottle of Nyquil, 473 ponytail holders, a digital camera, four tubes of chapstick, a tin of Carmex, a tube of self-tanning lotion, a travel brush, and my watch. Next to the nightstand is a stack of every RealSimple magazine I have ever gotten, every Minneapolis Monthly I have ever gotten (I honestly don't remember subscribing to that one...) another empty bottle of wine. On the other side of the bed I found the present I bought Kelly from South Africa but never mailed, a HUGE teddy bear, a decorative pillow, a vacuum cleaner (ha!), two photo albums, a tax return, another empty bottle of wine. Under my bed were two three ring binders with house information, two empty water bottles, a golf ball, various scraps of paper.

This is just the immediate area around my bed folks. On my computer desk there is a journal, a cassette tape my high school boyfriend recorded for me of him playing the guitar on one side, and Nirvana on the other side, one of those things that keep the light out of your eyes when you're sleeping, 26 pens in a kitchen glass, a sticky note pad, a sweat band for my wrist, another digital camera, four Netflix mailers, 47 strips that I ripped off of Netflix mailers and never threw in the garbage, a book I just got in the mail, the wrapper and mail envelope that came with the book, a mortgage coupon from June 2007, a box of wine, a really cute card I made for my mom about a year ago and never mailed, a card my aunt send me that says, "Freddie the fart cloud hopes your day's a gas!", three pairs of earrings, another watch, my recipe book, two little cards that say, "you park like a jerk" that I always planned to stick on somebody's car, a ream of paper stolen from work, two exercise water bottles, a painting Cory made for me that I haven't gotten around to framing and hanging, and various office supplies, all covered in an inch of dust.

That is about one third of my room. I still have my two dressers, the two chairs and bookshelf sitting area, and my huge closet. I'm sick of listing things. This is no exaggeration. You get the picture.

I'm a slob! But no more! I'm gonna clean this CRAP up.

And then perhaps I will claw my way out of this crippling messy bedroom syndrome.

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Please take the time to read and pass on to a loved one. This is very disturbing, please forward to warn others...Everyone is always sending warnings about viruses, people trying to drug you in the street, people trying to scam use of your mobile phone - the list goes on and on. I don't usually forward such warnings, but this one came to me today from a very reliable source and I feel compelled to warn people.(By the way, the reason some men were sent this is so that they can warn the women in their lives.)

WARNING:If a man comes to your front door and says he is conducting a survey and asks you to show him your boobs, DO NOT show him your boobs. This is a scam, he is only trying to see your boobs.

Sunday, March 1, 2009

Murphy fell asleep in my arms today during a Golden Girls marathon. He was so sick and so we stayed in all day. He started crying unexplicably and so I was all maternal and what-not and held him and wrapped him up tight in a blanket and he totes fell asleep! Then he got all sweaty and stinky after napping for an hour (and two episodes of GG) and so I blew on him and then eventually since that didn't work because I was worried that my breath stunk and so I moved him to his own little section of my sectional. Then he woke up and ate more popcorn.

Here we are at Hotel del Coronado, having a nice little fire and a mojito for Marla, who wanted to come but didn't make it. She asked us to have a drink for her (we had many many drinks for her, and for Anna, and for ourselves, and for California, and for the sun, and flip flops, etc.)

This fire was quite the ordeal. First, we had to walk into the bar to get our mojitos, and ask if somebody could light the fire. Then we had to move all the cushions from another table (that didn't have such a nice view of the sundown and so we didn't want to sit there) and then they were a little damp and so whatever, but then the clouds came out and we really couldn't see the sundown anyways. So this guy comes to light the fire for us and we had to feel really bad about it. His name was Pedro and he was very weird about us learning his name and he repeated it several times and then finally we all said Pedro like 30 times. We even explained that our brother's name is Pedro and Andrea's husband's name is Pedro. (Well, Pete, but same thing.) A little later on that evening, we saw Pedro and another dude WALKING AROUND ON THE ROOF of the Hotel. So of course we screamed, "PEDRO!" and he waved. I don't know why San Diego decided to be so darned cold and rainy when we went there, but these outdoor fires were the cat's pajamas.